As of December 30th 2004, I own a paperback copy of Seduced By Moonlight, which means I really ought to get cracking on a review, like I did for the first two books in the series. I'm already finding massive flaws and inconsistencies.
For example, Merry mentions her father's death when she was eighteen years old, after A Caress of Twilight made such a big deal about her being photographed at his funeral and sueing because she was sixteen and the media had violated the privacy of a minor.
Interestingly, the preview of A Stroke of Midnight at the back makes her age seventeen. Granted that it makes little difference, in the long run, which of the three ages given she really was, but it is one of the more glaring inconsistencies throughout the series.
There is also some repetition of names. A Kiss of Shadows had a character named Naomi Phelps; in this book, one of the Queen's assistants is a human woman named Madeline Phelps. Also there is a sidhe character named Nerys, which was the name of a nightflyer sent to kill Merry in A Kiss of Shadows. Moreover, that Nerys was killed in a most gruesome and memorable way: turned inside-out. I am surprised that LKH would choose to recycle the name.
One of the male guards given to Merry at the end is named Usna, who has calico hair and skin. His back-history is that his mother was enchanted into cat-form while she was pregnant with him, and this is the explanation given for his patchwork appearance. All well and good, but there are several glaring errors in this logic.
1. Male cats are hardly ever calico. That genetic trait is restricted to the X chromosome, and when male calicos do appear, they are almost invariably infertile. I have heard of a small colony of fertile male calico cats somewhere in Wales, and it would be lovely if LKH bothered researching enough to acknowledge that.
Moreover, Usna is chosen by the Queen for the express purpose of being given to Merry to help get her with child. Again, male calicos are infertile. This begs the question of why he was chosen as a sperm donor, since the probability that he is in fact sterile outweighs the chance that, eh, he might be able to have kids. (And honestly, who here thinks Usna is really a serious contender for king? Anyone? Bueller?)
2. How the hell is a cat able to give birth to a human child? The author's excuse that she was a "magical cat" does not sufficiently explain how a domestic feline weighing (let's be generous) 10-15 lbs was able to birth a healthy, normal-sized humanoid baby. Just getting the head through the birth canal would take some effort. And yes, she does stress that the mother was in cat form throughout pregnancy, labour, and delivery. LKH claims to have had a biology major, which makes the matter doubly inexcusable.
Speaking of the author's biology degree, it seems that our Princess Meredith is likewise educated. Instead of utilizing her degree, she chooses detective work as a career. Very well, but apparently while applying for detective work she never informed her employer about her biology degree. Uh, what? Isn't that why we have resumes? In fact, would that qualify as falsifying your resume? (No, really, I'm asking, would it? I have literally no experience in job-hunting, and have no idea what's required.)
[ETA 2/5/05: According to Shade, no, it wouldn't:
"In a word, no. Falsifying a resume would entail offering false information...such as someone claiming they have a degree in biology when in fact they do NOT. Trust me, there is no 'lying by omission' when it comes to disclosing things like degrees on resumes. Granted, listing your degrees makes you look more employable, but there is no rule against merely not stating them." Thanks, Shade!]
If she purposely omits listing experience and education in the field of biology, why would they hire her for their agency? What are her other credentials? She freely admits she never attained a master's in biology, yet has vague references to a "biology degree". Did she attend a second time for a separate degree? I'm not saying that her claims aren't valid, only that I would like to have them backed up and explained.
The book itself is decent, albeit repetitive. All of the events occur within the course of two days' time, and from a narrative point of view, nothing happens. No decisions are made, no life-shattering events take place...it's like a holding pattern in the series.
About the most significant event is when the chalice shows up, and since we're given literally no build-up to its appearance, the readers' collective reaction is a hearty "So?". Everyone stands around gaping at this wonderfully potent instrument of healing and life, and meanwhile I'm all, "Uh, terrific, now could you stop swiping from 2000 years of religious and mythical tradition and get back to the plot?" Granted LKH makes a point of saying, yeah, while this isn't THE Holy Grail per se, there were a lot of LESSER cups that had the ability to heal and raise the dead and create food for the starving, so it could very well be one of THOSE cups.
To which I say: Bitch, please. Just send the Holy Grail to Merry and be done with it. Hell, have her pull the original sword from the stone, and make her the rightful ruler of England; I don't care. She's such a Mary Sue that at this point I almost expect her to walk on water...I mean, the cover of A Stroke of Midnight is pushing it pretty thin anyway with the crown necklace of thorns.
I'm no longer complaining about Merry's harem (which, by book's end, totals sixteen). At least in that there is some form of character consistency...Merry sleeps around to get pregnant, with designated partners. Granted it's a flimsy excuse, but hey, it's the plot. Although I wonder what sort of issues the author has...both of her protagonists in their respective series have to have an overwhelming external reason to constantly have sex: Merry's trying to get pregnant and Anita has the ardeur. Both of these reasons seem to preserve the character's respective illusion that she's really a "good girl" and just can't HELP having all that nasty dirty intercourse! After all, she certainly wouldn't behave that way simply because she LIKED sex!
Judging by the last couple of chapters, it looks as though Merry is well on her way to becoming immortal. You know that dueling ritual of imbibing your opponent's blood, mentioned in A Kiss of Shadows? This time it appears to work in reverse, possibly granting Merry immortality when she's challenged by a fellow Unseelie sidhe. And she's finally giving a logical reason--as least, as logical as the flimsy plot goes--for having sex with nearly every supernatural being she runs into: if they're half-sidhe, sex brings them into their sidhe power (this explains what happened to Kitto in the last book). This seemingly no-lose situation is a bit of a Catch-22, as Sage soon finds out. :)
Anyone enamored of Frost, be warned: Your love will rapidly spiral into irritation. I wanted to bitchslap him nearly every time he entered a room. Also, the dream sequences were just screamingly obvious. A woman standing next to a dog? We get it, Laurell. She's gonna end up with Doyle. Okay? Stop hammering it into us. I personally don't give a shit either way...the only character I'm really emotionally invested in is Sholto, and he's been in all of, what, one book? so I really could care less about Merry's Final Choice. When you get down to it they're all just gussied-up sperm donors anyway.
You know, I'm wondering why Andais is even bothering with her little Merry-vs.-Cel fertility smackdown. Anyone with half a brain would know Merry will win in the end. Look at the roses. Cel's lived in the Unseelie palace/mound/thingy his entire life, and the roses--symbol of the court's fertility--have stayed dead and wilted. Merry waltzes in and they instantly spring to life. Big tapdancing clue, there. Granted Andais has a blind streak a football field wide regarding her son, and this is probably just a buffer to keep him from being directly punted off the throne, but still.
I predict that subsequent books will include a reference to Abloec along the lines of "drunk as a skunk". It won't necessarily happen in the next book, A Stroke of Midnight (although I would be shocked if it didn't), but mark my words, Laurell WILL connect the dots for us. It's just too obvious to resist.
I was pleased that Seduced By Moonlight was a bit longer than its predecessor by 61 pages and yet was the same price. To compare all of the books: A Kiss of Shadows was 468 pages. A Caress of Twilight was 348 pages. Seduced By Moonlight is 409 pages. Note that I am not counting the previews at the back for upcoming books in the series (which adds an extra 4, 8, and 13 pages respectively). This update will probably get quite boring as the series continues, but I just report the trends.